# Edward Miles artist context and auction value notes Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/edward-miles/ Profile generated: 2026-04-29T15:57:32.499Z Quality: high confidence, strong sources ## Artist identity - Birth date: 1752-10-14 - Death date: 1828-03-07 - Nationality: English, American - Movements: Late-18th-century English miniature painting tradition - Common media: Watercolour on ivory miniature, Enamel miniature, Drawing ## About Edward Miles Edward Miles (1752–1828) was an English miniature painter and court artist whose career spanned England, Russia, and the United States. Born in Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight, he moved to London around 1771 and exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1775 to 1797. His reputation for finely rendered portrait miniatures led to his appointment as miniature painter to Queen Charlotte in 1794. In 1797 Miles relocated to Saint Petersburg, where he served as court painter to Tsars Paul I and Alexander I until approximately 1806. After leaving Russia he emigrated to Philadelphia in 1807 and continued painting portrait miniatures for American patrons until his death in 1828. Miles also taught the American portraitist James Reid Lambdin. His surviving miniatures, typically executed in watercolour on ivory, are held in British, Russian, and American collections. ## Common works and media Portrait miniatures in watercolour on ivory, typically oval format and housed in lockets or framed cases. Known sitters include members of the British royal family, figures of the Russian imperial court, and prominent Philadelphia citizens. Miles also produced small-scale portrait drawings. His works from the London period (1775–1797) are the most frequently encountered at auction, followed by Philadelphia-period miniatures; Russian court works are comparatively scarce. ## Market and appraisal context The Appraisily auction index records 174 lots attributed to the keyword 'Edward Miles' across 2015–2023, with 101 carrying a realized price. The headline price distribution spans €5 to €8,400 with a median of €200 and a 75th percentile of €680. However, manual review of the 24 most recent lots reveals significant attribution noise: the majority are unrelated items (Chinese porcelain, furniture, Chanel handbags, Disney memorabilia, jewelry) that share the keyword match rather than being confirmed works by the miniature painter Edward Miles (1752–1828). Only one lot in the recent sample is explicitly catalogued as a work by Edward Miles: a watercolour-on-ivory miniature portrait of a lady (5 × 3.75 cm) that sold at Gorringes (UK) in September 2022 for £400. The true market for attributed Edward Miles miniatures is considerably thinner than the raw lot count suggests. Named auction houses appearing in the broader dataset include Ardent Auctions, Vanderkindere, DVC, Vectis Auctions, Clars Auctions, Cornette de Saint-Cyr, Historia Auctionata, Veilinghuis Van Spengen, Dawsons Auctioneers, and Richard ter Borg kunsthandel, though most of these houses' listed lots are not confirmed Edward Miles portrait miniatures. The market for Georgian portrait miniatures as a category is active but specialized, with results typically ranging from under £100 for lesser-known or damaged examples to several thousand pounds for royally connected or well-documented sitters. ## Auction-house-backed market evidence The Appraisily auction index records 174 lots attributed to the keyword 'Edward Miles' across 2015–2023, with 101 carrying a realized price. The headline price distribution spans €5 to €8,400 with a median of €200 and a 75th percentile of €680. However, manual review of the 24 most recent lots reveals significant attribution noise: the majority are unrelated items (Chinese porcelain, furniture, Chanel handbags, Disney memorabilia, jewelry) that share the keyword match rather than being confirmed works by the miniature painter Edward Miles (1752–1828). Only one lot in the recent sample is explicitly catalogued as a work by Edward Miles: a watercolour-on-ivory miniature portrait of a lady (5 × 3.75 cm) that sold at Gorringes (UK) in September 2022 for £400. The true market for attributed Edward Miles miniatures is considerably thinner than the raw lot count suggests. Named auction houses appearing in the broader dataset include Ardent Auctions, Vanderkindere, DVC, Vectis Auctions, Clars Auctions, Cornette de Saint-Cyr, Historia Auctionata, Veilinghuis Van Spengen, Dawsons Auctioneers, and Richard ter Borg kunsthandel, though most of these houses' listed lots are not confirmed Edward Miles portrait miniatures. The market for Georgian portrait miniatures as a category is active but specialized, with results typically ranging from under £100 for lesser-known or damaged examples to several thousand pounds for royally connected or well-documented sitters. ### Appraisal notes When appraising a work attributed to Edward Miles, Appraisily would combine the auction-record signals above with: (1) high-resolution photographs of the miniature's front, reverse, and any inscriptions; (2) exact dimensions and support (ivory thickness, oval vs rectangular); (3) medium confirmation (watercolour on ivory is expected; enamel would be noteworthy); (4) signature or inscription analysis, since many Georgian miniatures are unsigned; (5) condition report noting ivory cracking, paint flaking, glass replacement, or frame modifications; (6) provenance documentation linking the work to a documented phase of Miles's career (London, St Petersburg, or Philadelphia); (7) sitter identification when possible, as royal or aristocratic sitters materially affect value; (8) comparable lots from specialist miniature auctions (Gorringes, Toovey's, Bonhams, etc.) rather than general-estate sales. Given the noisy auction data, an appraiser should rely more heavily on specialist miniature-painting catalogues and museum comparables than on the broad Appraisily lot index for this artist. ### Valuation factors - [object Object] - [object Object] - [object Object] - [object Object] - [object Object] - [object Object] - [object Object] ### Collector notes ### Market caveats - [object Object] - [object Object] - [object Object] - [object Object] - [object Object] ### Market evidence sources - Appraisily auction record index: https://appraisily.com/api/scraper-search/artists/edward-miles/seo-profile?recentLimit=24&relatedLimit=0 ## Appraisily data basis Appraisily artist pages combine verified artist identity data from library authority files and art-history databases with public auction results, auction-house catalogue notes, realized prices, and comparable lot records when available. For Edward Miles, biographical and identity details are drawn from the RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, VIAF, and Wikidata authority files, cross-referenced with encyclopedic sources. ## Sources - Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18730215 - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Miles_(painter) - VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/99661147/ - RKD — Netherlands Institute for Art History: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/56110 - Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500012458